November 2013

I’m going to be featuring some posts about the CPHC Team for you here starting with the Crystal Pig Boys. Let’s start with Luke Zimmerman. He’s a baseball player and seems to have a knack for seeing big bucks as you’ll read in the story I asked him to write so we could get to know him better. Here it is:

One afternoon in Pilot Grove Missouri, after lunch me, my brother and Dad went back out in the woods. They dropped me off at my ground blind and were walking to my brother’s stand. I was looking around and all of sudden I see this big 11-point buck looking right at my Dad and brother. I aimed and shot my .35 rifle, hit him in the spine but he was still moving around. So as fast as I could get my 8 year old self to do it, I unloaded my gun at that buck but missed every time besides my first shot. He finally fell and I had my first deer. Hunting’s a huge part of my family. Getting to spend time with them, doing something we all love helps bring us together.

That’s the story from Luke’s first deer hunt when at 8 yrs. old he killed the biggest rack on our property up to that time. I seem to remember Gary asking him, “Son, do you know what you’ve done?” The reply with these big eyes looking up was, “I don’t know.” LOL. Well, I think he’s got it figured out!

So besides being hunters we’re also foodies. I really don’t like that word for some reason. We just plain like food and like to cook.

Here’s Paul’s wife Laura visiting camp this week. The menu? Pan fried snapper, grilled salmon with lemon caper sauce, grilled squash, lima beans and 5-grain Italian toast. Just a typical meal in the woods. The snapper was wild caught by us of course. Can’t wait until I get to do a salmon fishing trip someday.

What’s your favorite camp meal? Want to share a recipe? Feel free to chime in using the comment feature.

I’m not suggesting that this is something that will benefit you on a deer stand. However, not everything you’re going to find on this website will be strictly about hunting deer. Why? Because we think hunting goes hand in hand with a lot of other topics like food and beverage and anything related to meat. Bacon pretty much makes everything better and your underarms are not excluded thanks to J&D’s Foods. Just ask Jim Gaffigan.POWER BACON deodorant is designed specifically for those with active lifestyles – or people who just sweat like pigs.

Using POWER BACON will probably make everyone drawn to you like you were the most powerful magnet on Earth. And by everyone, we mean friends, acquaintances, beautiful strangers, dogs, bears, swamp alligators, lions and even pigs. It’s like an aphrodisiac for your armpits. But use your new power wisely, because with great bacon power comes great baconsibility.

For all day meat-scented protection, apply liberally to your underarms or private areas.

Do not eat or hike in the woods without a firearm while wearing POWER BACON.

This is a sunset view from my stand one evening on our first hunt. I thought I’d share it because we don’t have a lot of trees on our lease property. They’re mostly along the creek beds and in the ravines. The property was clear cut sometime recently and the loggers left a huge mess. Piles and pieces of trees everywhere. The new landowner we’re leasing from is working very hard at cleaning it up which has included bringing in a bulldozer to push up piles and burn them. He intends to plant the cleared areas in pines sometime soon.

I mention this to show how hunters and responsible landowners working together are really a force for conservation which is the title of a post on The Private Landowner Network. There are some interesting statistics quoted in there like an estimate of 13.7 million people over the age of 16 going hunting in 2011. And that hunters contribute about $1.6 billion annually to conservation efforts.

I will vouch for the fact that we’re doing our part with the investment we’ve made is some land improvements that includes planting seeds for new growth that wildlife will love and help keep the open land from eroding. It’s just part of the “job” of hunting responsibly.

Here’s one of my favorite photos from the archives. This is Luke’s first deer, first buck and it was a monster!

On Luke’s first hunt back in 2005 on opening day Paul walked him to the ground blind we had set up for him. He started walking to his stand and had not gone far when he heard the first shot. The one that took down this buck. He turned back toward the stand and saw the buck doing a wild dance as Luke proceeded to sling some more lead in his general direction. None of them hit. The first one was all that was needed.

When asked later, “Son, do you know what you’ve done?” Luke said something like, “I dunno.” Well what he had done was kill one of the biggest bucks and biggest racks in all our years of hunting up to that date!

Camp was packed up and the area was policed by Joe and we loaded the New Holland Rustler to go home for a while. We’ll be back in a couple weeks and hopefully the food plots will be growing.

We did more work on the property this year than we ever will again in order to prepare it for deer hunting. It was some hard work but will be well worth it in years to come.

Over the coming weeks I’ll be letting you get to know more about the New Holland Rustler and how it performs in some wild conditions as well as getting to know more about our hunt club members. The photo album is mostly up to date with photos I have. There are still some I’ve got to get from Paul and Gary to add to them. I hope you enjoy them. They give you a good idea of what camp life is like.

Our first 2013 Rustler Hunt days are coming to a close as we pack up today and head home. But we’re not done. We’ll be back in a couple weeks.

Yesterday we did a work day on this new lease property. Work consisted of putting up No Trespassing signs and seeding and fertilizing food plots. Paul is the master ATV seeder/spreader since he has also had a fire ant control business. We seeded 5 food plots yesterday and if we get some rain we’ll have some rye grass started before we get back.

I’ve got more stories to share but am running out of data in my hotspot plan so I’ll be back after I get back home.